Fruit Pizza

adapted from The Lowfat Good Food Cookbook

Just about everyone I know makes a “1st birthday cake,” but for the second time, we just had a “1st birthday fruit pizza” for Miriam’s birthday (I made it for Isaac’s 1st birthday too). 

Some people just think this is the worst thing- maybe because I will never have that adorable photo with cake all over her face, or maybe its because it is an enormous milestone to turn 1, and they should have the privelege of diving into deliciousness.

I try to hold off on giving my kids refined sugar until they are 2 (although as I have more kids, 18 months is just about as far as I can get, because they see their siblings having desserts), so fruit IS their “dessert” at mealtimes.   All my kids ADORE fruit, so this is really the best thing I can make them for their birthday (and we adults LOVE this recipe!)- they just get SOO excited to see all that fruit!! 

Miriam actually ONLY wanted the fruit, and then crushed up the cookie crust in her hands and played with it.

And contrary to popular belief, I’m not missing out on the messy face photos- we have PLENTY of those from other occasions!   

The Crust:

3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

1/2 cup soft margarine or butter
3 TBS skim milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 3/4 cup flour (if you have a wheat grinder, you can probably use mostly soft white berries, but I’ve never tried this with ONLY wheat flour.  If you don’t have a wheat grinder, this is definitely better with white flour).

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp baking soda

The topping:

1 block reduced fat cream cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp almond extract

2 1/2 Tbs sugar or honey

fresh fruit of your choice

1.  For the crust, cream the sugar and butter together until fluffy.  Add the milk and extracts.

2.  In another bowl, sift the dry ingredients and add to the creamed mixture until well blended.  Cover and refrigerate for 4-6 hours.  (There have been times I forgot to plan ahead and didn’t have 4-6 hours.  1 hour in the freezer usually does the trick- especially if you freeze 2 separate balls of dough).

3.  Press the dough into a 12-14 inch pizza pan*, or use a similar-sized square pan if necessary.  Press the edges of the dough slightly upward to resemble a pizza crust.

4. Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until golden.

5. Meanwhile, prepare the topping by creaming together the cream cheese, extracts, sugar or honey.

6.  Let the crust cool, and spread the topping over it.

7.  slice your favorite fruits into bite-sized pieces, and decorate the pizza with fruit in any pattern you like. 

* The last few times I’ve made this, I’ve been able to stretch the dough and make 2 pies- about 9 inches each.  I use my finger and thumb to make the edges pretty.

This is definitely the best fruit tart I’ve had because it isn’t overly sweet.  (Oftentimes the fruit is coated in an overly sweet glaze. ) Its also really great served with whipped cream.

Cheerio Treats

So I grew up with my mom making Peanut Butter Rice Crispy Treats.  I suppose she made them because they seemed a little more nutritious with some protein in them, rather than just loaded down with butter and marshmallows.  Or maybe she just made them because they tasted better, because they really do!

Because I grew up with these, I have never really liked regular rice crispy treats.   They taste soo different! 

One time I went to make them and only had Cheerios, so I decided to make “Cheerio Treats”, and add a few chocolate chips, and boy were they yummy!  (I really have to resist the urge to eat the entire plateful.)

Ingredients

3 Tbs butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

5 cups cheerios

5 cups marshmallows

1.  Melt peanut butter and butter together in a large bowl for about 30 seconds.  Stir until combined.

2.  Add marshmallows and stir until they are coated with the butters and microwave for about 2 minutes (or until marshmallows are melted), and stir about halfway through.

3.  Add Cheerios and stir until well combined

4.  Press evenly into a 13x9 pan (no need to grease it because of the peanut butter)

5.  Add a few chocolate chips throughout, but not too many because they may overtake the delicious flavor of the bars (but then again I’m not a huge chocolate fan).

 

Mango Lassi

from Madhur Jaffrey's Quick and Easy Indian Cooking

 

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup plain yogurt

1 cup chopped, ripe mango

3 Tbs sugar or to taste (I used 1 1/2 and it was great!)

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

8 ice cubes

I just bought a whole box of mangoes last week, so I figured I ought to finally learn how to properly cut a mango.  Here is the best instructional video I found if you are wondering how to cut a mango!

Healthy apple-berry crisp (almost NO sugar added!)

Apple crisp has always been one of my favorite desserts, especially my mom’s recipe.  However the first time I made it and saw how much butter and sugar was in it was also one of the last times I’ve made it! 

Baked apples, in my opinion, are so much tastier than fresh and simply cooking them without ANY other ingredients makes them taste like a dessert because they are as sweet as can be.  It is hard for me to justify adding so much butter and sugar to apples when they are naturally delicious (although I will admit that butter and sugar makes it irresistible). 

I (and the rest of my family) LOVE this creation, but it is definitely not going to taste like your traditional apple crisp.  Once you get used to eating things with less sugar and fat, things like this become a delectable treat!

The berries added to the apples make this more moist and syrupy, without the extra sugar and butter.

Ingredients:
3-4 apples, peeled and sliced
2 cups frozen mixed berries
2 tsp cinnamon, divided
1 1/2 tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup mixture of flour and oats (last time I just used fresh ground oats)
directions:
1.  sprinkle fruit with 1 tsp cinnamon (and a little sugar if you want a little extra sugar) and pour into pie dish
2.  add walnuts
3.  chop butter into small pieces and mash with flour, oats and brown sugar and sprinkle on top of fruit
4. bake at 375 for about 35 minutes (or until fruit is soft)
5.  Top with whipped cream (this is very important since there is hardly any sugar in this dessert, the whipped cream or cool whip really makes it yummy!)

Healthy peanut butter banana chocolate chip muffins

This is a recipe I got from a friend a while ago, but over time I have made it healthier.  One time I made them, I forgot the sugar and they still tasted great (because of the bananas).  Then the next time, I intentionally left out the sugar but forgot the oil and they still tasted great.  My kids love these, so I make a double batch and freeze them, pulling them out for healthy snacks.  Now I use freshly ground soft white wheat flour since I just got a wheat grinder for Christmas so you really can't get any healthier than this for a muffin!

Healthy peanut butter, banana, chocolate chip muffins

Ingredients

1 C. flour

¾ c. oats

1 TBS baking powder

1 c. milk

½ c natural peanut butter

2 medium over-ripe bananas

1 egg, beaten

1 TBS applesauce

½ TBS oil

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. 

Combine flour, oats and baking powder.

In a separate bowl, beat milk, peanut butter, bananas, egg, oil and vanilla. 

Combine all ingredients, mixing just until moistened.  Fill muffin cups and add 5 chocolate chips to each muffin, and gently press them down into the batter.

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.  (mini muffins only get 1 chocolate chip each and bake for 9 minutes)

Pie Crust

It is difficult to find a "healthy" pie crust since butter is a crucial ingredient., however some pie crusts call for a lot more butter (or shortening or lard, which I won't use) than others. 

Store bought pie crusts usually have way too many preservatives in them, and they tend to be expensive when you figure the ingredients it takes to make a pie crust.  Really it shouldn't cost much more than .60 to make 2 pie crusts.  I used to buy pie crusts, but when I really thought about how over-priced they are and realized how easy they are to make, I began looking for the perfect pie crust recipe.  I liked America's Test kitchen's method, but they used too much butter for me, so this is a combination of a few different recipes I've found.

The following recipe is definitely the "healthiest" and best tasting pie crust I have come across.  It also has a little vodka in it (concept taken from America's test kitchen) because this causes a flakier, lighter crust since the vodka helps hold the dough together while rolling it out, but evaporates during cooking time.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter, cut into 1" squares and frozen for 10 minutes
1 egg yolk
3 tbs blend of water and vodka in a bowl with an ice cube so it is nice and cold
2 tsp lemon juice

In a food processor combine flour and salt.  Add butter.  Pulse 10 1-second pulses.

Stir egg yolk and add 3 tbs of the water/vodka mix and a tsp of lemon juice (make sure it is nice and cold and do the next step right away).

Add 1/2 of this mixture to the food processor, and pulse 3 times.  Repeat this last step.  Add a little more (1 tsp at a time) lemon juice/vodka/water if the dough is still too dry.  If you can squeeze the dough together and it holds its shape, it has been mixed enough.  Do not over mix.

Dump the dough out on work surface and form 2 round 5- inch "pancakes".  wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.  When you pull it out, flour your surface and the dough liberally and roll into 12-inch round.

I usually only need 1 crust at a time (for my one-crust chicken pot pie), so I roll the second one out to 12-inches, put a piece of wax paper over it and carefully roll it up.  Then I wrap it in plastic wrap and put in the freezer for a quick and easy pie crust next time.

BEST PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES EVER!!!!

Peanut butter cookies are one of the things I can't resist. 

I have tried LOTS of different peanut butter cookies, and this is absolutely my FAVORITE!!

The best part is that it uses a little less butter and sugar than most other recipes.

This is from cooking pleasures magazine.

ingredients:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup natural-style reduced fat peanut butter (I actually don't use low fat, because I don't have it on hand)
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/4 cup finely chopped roasted peanuts

preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add brown sugar, beating well at medium speed.  Beat in egg white and vanilla until combined.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt, and gradually add flour mixture to peanut butter mixture, beating well after each addition.  Stir in peanut butter chips.
    Shape dough into 1 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on one or two ungreased cookie sheets.  Flatten cookies with a fork to make a cross-hatch pattern and sprinkle tops with peanuts.  Bake until cookies are golden brown around the edges, about 8 minutes.  Cool completely on a wire rack.  Makes about 60 small cookies.
53 calories, 6 g carbs, 3 g. fat, 1 g protein, 0 g. fiber.

Healthier strawberry pretzel squares

You assumed you were eating a healthy dessert when you found out it had strawberries, jello and pretzels, but what about all that sugar in jello?  and what about all that butter used in the crust? and what about the dyes and chemicals in jello?

a lot of desserts that cut back in sugar replace it with sugar substitute like splenda or equal, but
is there a way to make a healthier version of strawberry pretzel squares without using sugar substitute?

This is what I've come up with and my entire family loves it.

Ingredients:
1 box knox gelatin
4 cups fruit juice*, divided
2 Tbs agave syrup (or white sugar)
1/4 cup (half stick) of butter
2 cups roughly chopped pretzels
3 Tbs sugar
2 blocks low fat cream cheese
3 Tbs powdered sugar
1 1/4 cup cool whip
4 cups strawberries

1.  Add 4 packets (one box) of knox gelatin packets to 1 cup cold fruit juice.  Let sit 1 minute.  Add 3 cups boiling fruit juice and 2 Tbs agave (or sugar).  Stir 5 minutes until gelatin and sugar dissolve.  Refrigerate  30 minutes, then add the fruit and refrigerate another 10 minutes. (you don't want it to gel completely because it won't look very pretty when you dump this mixture on top of the crust and cream cheese).
While this is chilling. . .

2.  Melt butter, add pretzels and 3 Tbs sugar.  Spread in a 13x9 pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.  Put in the fridge while making the cream cheese mixture.

3.  Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar.  Stir in cool whip.  Carefully spread over pretzel mixture. (because the pretzel crust is low fat, it is very crumbly at this point, making it tricky to spread the cream cheese mixture, so this is the hardest part and takes a little patience.  Spoon globs of cream cheese all over the crust so it is a little easier to spread.)

4.  pour the jello over crust and cream cheese mixture.   Refrigerate for another 1.5 hours.  Top with cool whip (this really makes it, in my opinion).

*I have used apple or grape juice (which is my favorite) but any 100% fruit juice should work fine.  The point is to use 100% juice so as not to add unnecessary sugars and food colorings.

18 servings - about  7 grams of fat, 5 grams of sugar per serving (not including the fruit juice).  (The original has about 11 g fat, 15 g sugar per serving- which isn't too bad when you just eat 1, but it is such a yummy dessert that I always wanna eat at least 2-- this is part of the reason I make things healthier, because I don't have much will power:)

Healthier Peanut Butter Pie

I LOVE PEANUT BUTTER!

So, when I worked at a restaurant a few years ago, I couldn't resist their peanut butter pie.

Definitely the best peanut butter pie I've ever had!

When I stopped working there, I was on a mission to figure out how to make a similar one. 

Most recipes were laden with heavy cream, and I refused to make one THAT bad for you.  It is already gonna be fattening because of the peanut butter, but why add so much extra fat when I knew it could still be good without cream?

I finally found one I liked with cream cheese, but it called for 1 1/2 cups of confectioner's sugar, so of course I cut that WAY back and used light cream cheese.  So here is my recipe for reduced sugar, reduced fat peanut butter pie, and trust me, it is SOO worth the calories!!

-1 graham cracker crust (I actually make a homemade crust by crushing 1 pack of graham crackers in the food processor and adding 2 tbs melted butter.  Form it into a pie plate and freeze for 10 minutes.)

-1 cup natural peanut butter (I'm sure you could use other peanut butter, but natural is the only kind I've tried).
 -1 16 oz container of cool whip (not the 8oz!)
- 1 block of 1/3 less fat cream cheese
- 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar*
- crushed peanuts

blend sugar, cream cheese, and peanut butter until creamy.  Blend in cool whip on low speed.  Fill graham cracker crust, cover with crushed peanuts and drizzle with chocolate syrup** if desired.

Freeze for about 2 hours prior to serving so it holds its shape a little better.  It tastes great frozen or refrigerated!

*Sometimes I make this as a snack and don't put in ANY sugar (aside from the cool whip) and it tastes great with graham crackers, so use as little sugar as you like and add more as needed.  I've found that 1/2 cups is good when serving for a crowd, but 1/4 cup or even less is just fine for our family).
**Sometimes I melt chocolate chips and put in a small plastic bag, poke a hole in it and squeeze the chocolate out of the bag.  Or you could simply chop up some chocolate chips and sprinkle them on top with the peanuts to make it pretty.

Toasted Almond Pound Cake with Fresh Strawberry puree and coconut cream cheese

This recipe was inspired by one of my favorite desserts when I worked at Garry's Grill-  SOO YUMMY!!!

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted and ground
1/4 cup sour cream

1. Heat oven to 350.  Grease bottom of 9x5x3 inch loaf pan with shortening; sprinkle with flour.
2.  In large bowl, beat butter at medium speed 1 inute or until smooth and creamy.  Add 1 cup sugar; beat 5 minutes or until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in almond extract and vanilla.  Scrape down sides of bowl.
3.  In medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt.  Stir in ground almonds.
4.  Beat sour cream into batter at low speed.  Continuing at low speed, beat flour mixture into batter for 10 seconds.  Finish stirring batter with rubber spatula until completely blended.
5.  Spoon batter into pan.  Level with spatula; tap pan firmly on counter to settle batter.  Bake 45 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and edges of cake pull away from sides of pan.  Cool on wire rack 10 minutes.  Run knife around edges of pan; invert cake onto wire rack.  Cool completely.

Coconut cream  (this I made up, so I'm not sure of exact amounts)

1 block 1/3 less fat neufchatel cheese.
1/2 container cool whip
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup coconut

beat together and serve pound cake with a scoop of cream and drizzle with fresh strawberry sauce.

sauce
2 cups strawberries
2 Tbs water
3 Tbs sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

blend all of this together

cream